Google Wave - What Does This Do Again?

Ok, so we got this new toy today. It's called Google Wave. Maybe you heard of it.

To say the least, I'm still trying to figure out what is so cool about this thing but it's r

eally hard when you don't have friends on it. Then again, if you were lucky enough to respond on my facebook/twitter or the DorkCorp twitter you won an invitation to Wave. But, I also have no idea when those are going out so I'm on my own here. So let's chat about what I can make use of as one user...lame...what? Anyway.

"I'm here to enlist your help in trying out a new tool for real time communication and collaboration called Google Wave!" says Greg or "Dr. Wave" as he is known in Australia. Then again, he is product manager for Google Wave down there, so I'm just going to let him get away calling himself whatever he wants.

The picture at the top of this post is the first thing you see upon entering Wave, and I wasted no time watching another timeless Google product video. As explained in the above quote by Dr. Wave, Google Wave is a means of online, real-time collaboration. IM/Email kind of environment coupled with lots of linking, file uploads, sharing, and Google Gadgets. It's almost like a private forum between whoever you want. Would you allow me another analogy?

When you send an email with lets say an assignment to a few people, everyone gets a copy. The problem is should all these people make changes, the document is now out of sync. Google Wave is a hosted meeting space. You can see what people type AS they type it. Anyone can edit any part of the wave you invite...

The expression became "Google it," and now I'm sure this product is going to birth "Ride the Wave." Which is entirely possible given the following...

The above is an example of "riding the wave," in that there is a little timeline at the top of the page allowing you to make this thing a Tivo. Play, pause, rewind, fast forward all the events that happened since the wave began. Won't lie, that's pretty neat. It's not textual updates on who changed what (Microsoft Live Mesh) this is changes in the form of video...awesome! What gets cooler about this is the level of integration it offers to other parts of the web like Blogger and Twitter. These are gadgets you can add into a wave and...well just look.

It's what Google/Wave is calling a "robot" that either grabs stuff for you from Twitter (like a popular search or something) and updates your/that Wave accordingly. Better put, you subscribe to 400 people on Twitter, there are really only 3 you care about. This bot can grabs their news. But the coolest bot by far, leverages off of Google's translation service offering real-time, instant translation services. Trillian Astra offers this same functionality for IM-ing, but that is all I shall digress on that tangent.

All in all, this is a pretty nifty service. I don't know how much I'll be using it given that Trillian manages all my social networks (facebook, twitter, aim, etc) and that Live Mesh syncs all my own files across all of my own stuff WITH friends if I choose to share with them. But we'll see, Google as always is continually ramping up the quality of software they choose to give out for free. But I'll be honest, nothing has thrown me over the edge here. Nothing is wowing me, don't get me wrong I'm impressed - it does some cool stuff. But I'm not flipping out over it in the same fashion did when people first saw an iPhone. I feel as though services like Google Wave exist in equally free forms. The only thing that is really standing out to me is ability to "ride the wave" and see video changes made to the wave. That is incredibly awesome. But, that, uhh about it as far as shock and awe value go? If I find something particularly mind blowing, rest assured I'll be issuing an update.

Finally, I've used all of my invitations. No point in asking for one. For those of you who who managed to win an invite allow me to share the following directly from Google.

"Invite others to Google Wave

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.

Invitations will not be sent immediatley. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Happy waving!"